Apple may be offering 17″ iMac for educational institutions (Updated)

A short quip in an online newsletter for education suggests Apple bringing …

The March edition of Apple's "eNews for Education" newsletter naturally pimps the company's newest desktop hardware, including the new iMac, Mac mini, and Mac Pro lines. The scant information Apple includes suggests the company offers a 17" iMac model for just $899. Except, Apple hasn't offered a 17" iMac since the move from the white polycarbonate enclosures to aluminum and black polycarbonate enclosures two years ago.

Needless to say, the news that the company is offering a 17" model is quite surprising. A 17" model wasn't announced with the new updates earlier this month, and it isn't available from Apple's standard online educational store. Given the state of the economy, which has caused many schools to face budget shortfalls, Apple may be offering the 17" model as a special low-cost option for institutional purchase only. However, none of our sources could confirm the availability of the model anywhere in Apple's catalog.

When Apple introduced the first flat panel-based iMacs in January 2002, the company offered the 17" CRT-based eMac as an institution-only product. Due to customer demand, Apple later offered the eMac for retail an education purchase. If this 17" iMac does indeed exist, it's possible Apple may eventually offer this model to the general public if a significant demand exists.

UPDATE: We were able to track down the 17" model, which requires some careful clicking to get to. First, you must be purchasing for a K-12 or higher ed institution. If you aren't an authorized purchase agent for your institution, which requires a password, you'll have to use the "Create Quote" option. When the store loads, click on the iMacs—even though it says, "Starting at $1149."

The resulting options show the new aluminum models with 20" and 24" screens. However, on the lower-right corner you'll see a link for a "17-inch iMac with 1.83GHz processor available. Just $899.00." You can see below that the 17" model is still clad in the older-style white polycarbonate casing. As mentioned in the comments, it appears that Apple has continued to offer this model since discontinuing it for the general public in late 2007.

Though the pricing is attractive, I'm not sure it represents a great value in the current market. The combination of a 1.83GHz processor, max 2GB DDR2 RAM, combo optical drive (DVD-ROM + CD-R/W), and Intel integrated graphics is pretty underwhelming. Given many schools' 3-year or longer equipment cycles, those buying this cheaper iMac would end up with what is essentially 5-year old equipment by the time its reached the upgrade cycle. And without the NVIDIA 9400M graphics, this model would see little benefit from a Snow Leopard upgrade.

Likewise, with the old design and underwhelming hardware, I also wouldn't expect Apple to ever offer this to the general public.